Shortly after the nearby discovery of gold in 1862, outlaws and ruffians from all over began to congregate in newly platted Boise City. One of the city’s only recorded pistol duels settled a dispute between a covetous husband and the lover of a young damsel—both happened to be lawyers. After getting busted running a long con, the King of Boise’s Underworld was sent to the penitentiary. What could be called the area’s first mass shooting occurred when an Alaskan gold miner sought revenge against the young woman who stood him up. A local postmaster found himself in a notorious case of a love triangle gone wrong. And a death cult returned the mummy of one of its followers to Boise. Authors Mark Iverson and Jeff Wade go beyond the traditional histories to gain an appreciation for the lives often willfully removed from history’s pages and thus forgotten.
Mark Iverson spent time with the Peace Corps in the Balkans prior to moving to Idaho in 2009. With a master’s in history from Boise State University, he founded IdaHistory in 2019. Jeff Wade holds a BS in criminal justice. His first book, Brave as a Lion: Jeff Standifer and the Knights of the Golden Circle, was published in 2019. He’s the creator, cohost and producer of Cascadia Podcast: History of the Pacific Northwest. Learn more at www.idahistory.com.